Bula Method Exercise Program

Cure Back Pain To Live Your Life Pain Free

Back Pain Exercise Program

A method of exercising engineered to immediately relieve chronic lower back pain, neck pain and shoulder pain. A unique mind-body fascial fitness system which treats-to-resolve all mechanical chronic back pain conditions. Because of It's mindful-meditative approach to core strengthening, spinal mobilization, stability, balance and alignment, the Bula Method could be described as "extreme restorative yoga" for chronic back pain!

After suffering several debilitating spinal injuries as a professional rugby player, Bula Ball’s founder and inventor Riaz Fredericks was living with chronic back pain. Surgery became necessary and during his recovery he knew that the quality of his life depended on breaking the cycle of chronic pain. The Bula Method was born from his own hard-fought battle with chronic lower back pain and chronic neck pain.

The Bula Method fights back pain through simple consistent exercise. Our correctional exercise program is designed to decompress the spinal system and stop spinal decay caused by degenerative disc disease. Regular use of the Bula Method eliminates chronic back pain by treating the root causes of that pain - a tight dysfunctional core system. By increasing core stability, flexibility and muscular and fascial elasticity, the Bula Method restores the pain-free movement we were each born with before injury, stressand age made even everyday tasks painful.

Rebuilding Core Stability

Pelvic-Lumbar Alignment.

Mechanical back pain is all pain derived from the body’s biomechanical function, which includes the muscles that move us and the fascia that stabilizes that movement. Non-mechanical back pain derives from tumors, disease or illness - pain derived from non-mechanical sources requires medical attention. The underlying cause of mechanical back pain is a weak and dysfunctional core system. A weak core leads to a disconnection between the pelvis and the lumbar spine that creates misalignments in your spinal system eventually leading to spinal degeneration. This disconnection leads to a host of other problems.

The most obvious outward symptom is poor posture that not only looks unattractive, but also puts pressure on all the muscles in the chest and back leading to tight painful muscles. Less obvious, but even more problematic, is that the disconnection between the pelvis and lumbar spine often causes unnatural rotation in the hips and knees which puts pressure on the muscles and joints connecting the hips, knees and ankles which can lead to injury, pain and even invasive replacement surgery.

These structural problems often manifest in pain in a specific area of the body, usually the lower back pain, but really the problem effects the whole biomechanical function of the body - from the neck down to the ankles - it causes limited joint mobility, compresses joint sockets, cartilage and discs and holds ligaments, tendons and muscles in long stretched out positions until they overload and weaken, this causes pain and increases the risk of injury.
You may first experience mechanical back pain as muscle spasms that resolve quickly with a little ice and heat or possibly a few weeks of physical therapy (if you are lucky enough to have insurance that will cover such a thing!) Fascial or ligament strains are usually caused by a strong force or physical trauma and take much longer to heal often leading to chronic pain conditions.

Symptoms of mechanical back pain are dull aching pain, sharp pain, tingling or burning sensations and weakness in a leg or foot. These symptoms are all by-products of a spinal system that is being crushed by hardened, chronically tight muscles and fascia or being pinched by compressed joints and herniated discs. The pain you are experiencing can often be tied to one traumatic event, but really the root cause is much deeper and more systemic. A tight and inelastic muscular and fascial system makes you more susceptible to pain and injury. Have you ever noticed how a child can bend, flip and fall down without a single strain or injury? It’s because a child’s fascial system is loose, elastic and hydrated. Their bodies can bend and adjust to external forces that would likely injure an adult.

The Bula Method works to bring you back to that childlike state. By softening the myofascial system and improving its elasticity, back pain is relieved quickly and you will find yourself much less likely to suffer an injury resulting in chronic pain.
The Bula Method is so effective because it does not treat the outward symptoms of chronic pain - instead it treats the whole body. Our approach works by balancing the tensional forces in and around the spinal system, decompressing the spine and lifting tension off joint sockets and the nervous system, this allows for increased biomechanical functional movements as structural integrity is corrected. This simple revolutionary approach doesn't just resolve chronic back pain but also greatly reduces the risk of reoccurring back pain or injury because of the myofascial resilience to injury that builds up with an elastic, supple and flexible myofascial system.

The Cause of Your Pain.

Whole Body Stability Training

Fascial Fitness.

A focus of the Bula Method is to harmonize two of the often over-looked muscles that are necessary for a strong and stable core - the psoas muscle and the transverses abdominal. Both muscles are directly responsible for pelvic-lumbar alignment, mobility, and functional movements. Individuals suffering with chronic back pain usually have short, tight and rigid psoas muscles and inflated and weak transverse abdominal muscles.

Your core will never be able to support your spinal system if those muscles are not working properly; making those muscles work for you rather than against you is the key to living pain-free.When these two muscles are working optimally the psoas muscles are long, supple and elastic while the transverses abdominal is toned and firm.The Bula Method employs various tools to optimize the psoas and transverse abdominal muscle. Through myofascial release using a Bula Ball, you can apply acupressure directly on the psoas muscle to trigger a release and also hydrate the tissue. This daily manual therapy works to increase the elasticity of both psoas muscles, hydrate the muscle and reduce the pressure that imbalanced muscles place on the pelvis and lumber spine.
You will learn to strengthen the transverse abdominal muscle through simple breathing techniques.

Strengthen The Transverse Abdominal

Unlike the other core abdominal muscles, the only way to strengthen the transverse abdominal is through mindful engagement and a combination of different diaphragmatic breathing exercises. This is the reason most "core strengthening" programs given to individuals suffering back pain are ineffective, they exercise external abdominal muscles and they miss the most crucial internal transverse abdominal muscle.Traditional abdominal exercises have very little impact on core stability because they don't have any significant effect on your two primary core muscles. You should think of the psoas and transverse abdominal as the foundation of your house. If the foundation is weak or cracked the house will never be stable.

Our simple but effective method of rebalancing your core stabilizers rebuilds the foundation of your house and makes it possible to strengthen all the muscle groups that make up the core system. With a strong and stabilized core you will find that your pain disappears and that you are less likely to suffer an injury or reoccurring back pain. In addition to the manual therapy and breathing exercises you will learn, the Bula Method includes modified restorative yoga/meditation seated poses that work to open the pelvis and create space for the lumbar spine to gravitate back to a more neutral position.

Stability Training - Posture Matters!

Stability training is the final ingredient needed to restore structural integrity and lock in all the gains made from increasing myofascial elasticity, pelvic-lumbar alignment and increasing your biomechancial range of motion. Stability training is an extension of core stability as we work to retrain correct basic functional movement patterns like breathing and walking, along with postural positions like sitting and standing. It may sound odd that you need to train your body to breath, sit and stand, but most of us are doing it wrong! Proper posture when you are engaging in these most basic aspects of life is critical to living pain free.

Until recently, most people had never heard of the word “fascia.” But it is one of the most important and largest organs in the human body, and is critical to correcting postural alignment. Fascia moves through and surrounds every part of our body, our muscles, arteries and vital organs, it has 6-10 more nerve endings than muscle. The fascial system is like webbing holding everything in its rightful place, binding our bodies together and stabilizing our movements. Because we are made up of more than 60% water, fascia is necessary to keep our bodies together so that we aren’t just puddles on the floor.

The Final Ingredient

Fascial Fitness.

Most of us are at least aware of some of the fascial tissue in our bodies, even if we don’t know its name. Think of the plantar fascia in your foot or the IT (Illitibial) band that runs from your pelvis to your knee. For many of us when those areas of the body are massaged or manipulated it can be extremely painful – that is because the fascia is tight, constricted and dehydrated. Fascia is constantly working to offer stability where our bodies need it. For the person that spends long periods of time sitting – which is most of us – the fascial system is working to support that seated position. Fascial thickening occurs in the pelvis and lower back, which bear the brunt of the pressure when seated. Many of us sit hunched over slightly which causes the fascia in the chest and upper back to thicken as well.

Posture Matters

The fascia is trying to support your poor posture and it is causing your posture to get worse! It is a vicious cycle of dysfunction. Over time the cumulative nature of fascial thickening forces the muscles to harden, locking in negative postural behavior that limits healthy functional movement and paving the way for joint and other mechanical back pain conditions to set in. This is why it is so crucial to develop positive postural habits through stability training and why it has to be a critical component of any fascial fitness exercise program.

The Bula Method is one of the only fascial fitness programs that takes a holistic view of the problem of chronic lower back pain. We treat the causes of your pain rather than just its symptoms. The Bula Method uses proven methods of increasing fascial elasticity, it rebalances two of the key core stabilizers – the psoas and the transverse abdominal, and it gives you the tools to stabilize your core and correct poor posture. If you consistently utilize the Bula Method’s simple correctional exercises, acupressure and breathing techniques your pain can be eliminated. It requires some work on your part, but the reward is living a pain-free life.